All, or nearly all, of the garments--pants, shirts, skirts, blouses, suits, dresses, intimate apparel, etc.--manufactured in the many countries of the world which have clothing manufacturing capability are put on hangers for presentation to the ultimate consumer in a retail outlet. By far the most common commercial practice is to place garments on hangers at the location at which the garment is manufactured, though in a few instances a garment may be assembled to a hanger at the retail location just prior to presentation of the garment to the ultimate consumer for sale. However, whether the hanger utilization initially occurs at the plant of the garment manufacturer or at the retail location, business and environmental concerns pertaining to the handling of hangers have arisen.
A major concern pertaining to the handling of hangers is the cost incident thereto. In the typical situation a hanger, usually made of plastic, is manufactured by the hanger manufacturer and shipped to the garment manufacturer. The garment manufacturer places the newly made garments on hangers and then ships the garments on hangers to either a distribution location or, more usually, directly to a retail outlet where the garment is displayed for sale to the ultimate purchaser, a consumer. Some garments, such as men's and women's suits, may be taken home by the consumer after purchase at the retail store on the hanger on which it was displayed for purchase. However the large majority of hangers are removed from the garment by a retail store clerk at the cash register or check out station, the hanger then being discarded into a bin. At the end of a day, or at least periodically, the bin is emptied into a trash container at the retail store. The discarded hangers, which may be of many different shapes and sizes and produced by different hanger manufacturers, are then disposed of as by burning, burying in a landfill, etc. Since the cost to the garment manufacturer of a typical plastic hanger may be, for example, about 15.cent. at the present time, it can be seen that a substantial economic cost is involved in the presentation of garments on hangers by the retail outlet. In addition, the retail outlet is required to dispose of the discarded hangers which entails a further cost to the retail merchant.
It is important to note that the great majority of hangers that are thus disposed of are perfectly operable and quite capable of one or more re-uses. The material from which the hanger is made, usually plastic, and the construction of the hanger, are such that the hangers are designed to withstand severe stresses during use. The very great majority of hangers are thus destroyed though they are perfectly capable of further use as a garment hanger.
From the above description it will also be seen that the current system of handling hangers is wasteful of natural resources and labor. Plastics are, for the most part, petroleum based and, in view of the current system of destruction of plastic hangers after one use in the commercial life of the hanger, fresh plastic from virgin petroleum base stock must be provided. As can be appreciated, the manufacture of 10 hangers by the hanger manufacturer is far more labor intensive, and hence expensive, than using a single hanger ten times, assuming an economically viable system is available to collect, sort, renovate as needed, and ship prior used hangers. There are also less obvious, but real, societal and environmental costs in the current hanger handling system including the deposition of literally tons of hangers, which are not space efficient, in landfills, and the fuel cost inherent in reducing hangers to a base state as by burning or compressing.
It is possible of course for the retail merchant to sort hangers periodically which have been collected in boxes and ship them to the hanger manufacturer or the garment manufacturer. However retail store labor is usually not available to do the added sorting task, the garment manufacturer and hanger manufacturer are not set up to receive and further process the returned hangers. The sorting difficulties at the retail store level are particularly formidable and include separation of look-alike hangers into groupings intended for the original manufacturer, and the problem of disposal of that group of hangers, usually composed of a relatively lower cost material, which are not suitable for recycling. The last mentioned hangers are of course suitable for regrinding, but since neither the garment manufacturer nor the hanger manufacturer is, at the present time, equipped to handle such hangers economically, the retail store merchant is still presented with a disposal problem as above described.
Although the economic inefficiency inherent in the present system of handling garment hangers has been recognized there is today no known system for recycling and reusing garment hangers which (a) does not require sorting at the point of termination of hanger commercial use (i.e.: at the cash register at the retail store), (b) accepts usable hangers and hangers which have no further commercial use potential and thus must be disposed of or reground, and (c) efficiently return reusable hangers to garment manufacturers, including shipment from shipping origins which are more strategically located, and hence less costly in operation, than shipments which originate from the virgin manufacturing locations.